When children are engaged with the language, they learn. It can be a challenge, though, to keep kids engaged, especially when you are working with several children or a whole class. Even in a small group, if kids have to wait long their attention wanders. In a class of fifteen three year olds, structuring activities to keep everyone engaged with the language is essential. I am always thinking through ways for a number of kids to interact with Spanish words and sentences at the same time. I have had a lot of success using a big collage for different kinds of activities. These are the activities I did in one class to teach veo, including the script for the story I told and the printable take-home activity.

The Collage I make my big collages on sticky paper. Kids can cut out the pictures and help make the collage if you are at home or have class time that allows for longer projects. Finding and cutting out pictures is an excellent language activity. I use sticky paper because it is faster and easier than gluing, and the collage is much more durable (you can just roll them up). Be sure to put your biggest pictures on first and then fill in the spaces with smaller pictures. You can fill any empty spots with tissue paper. Also, spread the vocabulary evenly along the collage so that children will be able to see pictures of all the words no matter where they are.

Keeping everyone doing something is especially important when you are introducing new Spanish words. With the collage, everyone can search, find and repeat at once. When I introduce vocabulary, I structure activities to combine Spanish words kids are familiar with and new language. For example, with the collage in the photos, the children had already been introduced to the animal words and ¿donde está? The new vocabulary was veo, I see.

First, we read an abbreviated version of Oso pardo, oso pardo, ¿qué ves? We had read it the week before too. I left out the colors because this was a new group (their 4th class). I had everyone repeat Veo un.. the way they thought the animals would say it. I pointed to my eyes to emphasize the meaning of veo.

Then, everyone found a space along the collage and I would say, for example, Veo un gato and make the animal sound to reinforce the meaning. They looked for un gato and repeated Veo un gato as they touched the picture. Of course, there were lots of shouts of ¡gato! ¡gato!, but then we would repeat together Veo un gato and soon they got the pattern.

The Story I followed up the collage activity by telling a ridiculous story. I use small stuffed animals (beanie bag type) and make them talk and move. Stick puppets would work just as well. In my story, I was using the animals the kids knew: un gato, un perro, un caballo, un oso and un pájaro. My three and four-year-olds love this story, probably because there is so much dramatic crying.

1) The cat comes out, jumps up to something. I sit on the floor, so he jumps to a chair beside me. The cat yawns loudly, curls up and goes to sleep.

The Craft The take-home project for this class was a wheel to practice veo. I put the eyes on the top wheel to remind them of the meaning of veo, but they look a little creepy. I think that it might be better to have each child draw a face on the top wheel. First, the kids colored the animal wheel. (You might want to mention that if they color the animals with dark colors they are hard to see, especially the horse) and then we put the top wheel on with a metal brad. If you only cut out two sides of the window, leaving a tab, it is easier for little ones to turn. As you help put the wheels together, and the child spins it, say Veo un gato, veo un perro, etc. Some of the animals on the wheel repeat.